APME accepting nominations for Board of Directors

You can help lead the news industry during one of the most exciting and challenging times in its history.

The Associated Press Media Editors is assembling a slate of directors to serve on its national board. The slate will fill four openings on the 21-member board and be voted on during the APME's national conference Oct. 28-30 in Indianapolis. There will be one position each for a small-newspaper, online, broadcast and at-large director.

To nominate yourself or a colleague for the board, please email APME elections committee chairman Chris Cobler at ccobler@vicad.com.

The deadline for nominations is June 1.

The elections committee will review and respond to all nominations.

APME is an association of editors at news organizations in the United States and Canada. It works closely with The Associated Press to foster journalism excellence and to support a national network for the training and development of editors who will run multimedia newsrooms in the 21st Century.

Become a Lifetime Member of APME

For the first time and in recognition of its 80th anniversary in 2013, APME is offering lifetime memberships for a limited time. You can join this elite group of news industry leaders for just $800 -- already, four members have made this commitment to APME. Renew your membership for a year or a lifetime by clicking here.

NewsTrain Ambassador campaign seeks alumni and supporters

Ten years ago, APME introduced NewsTrain to provide top-level, on-site training at a low cost for journalists. So much has changed in our business over the last decade, but NewsTrain has maintained its mission and has become even stronger. Directed by industry-leading trainer Michael Roberts, who previously served as deputy managing editor for staff development at The Arizona Republic, the pro- gram attracts top trainers and each year reaches hundreds of print, online and broadcast journalists, as well as college students and educators.

Last year, the three NewsTrain sites - Phoenix, Miami and Toronto - exceeded 100 participants each. This year, workshops are planned for Springfield, Ill.; New York City; Colorado Springs; and Seattle. NewsTrain remains affordable at only $75 for up to two days of training, but it's driven by donations from the Associated Press, other media companies, foundations and individuals.

For NewsTrain's 10th year, the Associated Press Media Editors is reaching out to journalists in the United States and Canada who have attended a NewsTrain workshop, or who have sent staffers who have benefited.

This is the year to give back to NewsTrain, and we hope that you'll help in the 2013 NewsTrain Ambassador Campaign.

Make a donation of $100 or more and become a NewsTrain Ambassador. You'll be recognized online and in the APME News magazine, as well as the national conference Oct. 28-30 in Indianapolis. If you can't give that level, consider a gift of $10 or more in this 10th anniversary year. All donations are appreciated. APME is a nonprofit, so gifts are tax-deductible.

Please make your check out to the Associated Press Media Editors and mark it for NewsTrain. Send it to APME/NewsTrain, c/o Sally Jacobsen, Associated Press, 450 W. 33rd St. New York, NY 10001.

We need NewsTrain to continue making stops in the U.S. and Canada for years to come. Please help us do that.

Don't miss: New York City NewsTrain, June 6-7

NewsTrain will be in New York City on June 6-7 for a two-day workshop on covering disasters and tragedies, including how to help staff cope with the emotional toll of such stories.

NewsTrain is sponsored by APME and this workshop is hosted by The Associated Press in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Philadelphia and the Mid-Atlantic; New York Daily News; Asbury Park Press, Neptune, N.J; The Press of Atlantic City; New Jersey Press Association; The Record of Woodland Park, N.J.; New Jersey APME; Digital First Media/Journal Register Co. in Conn.; The Philadelphia Inquirer; the Philadelphia Daily News; the Albany (NY) Times Union; the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle; 1010 WINS, CBS Radio New York; The Observer-Dispatch, Utica., NY; the New York State Associated Press Association; CUNY Graduate School of Journalism; The News Journal of Wilmington (Del.); the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma; the Asian American Journalists Association.

GREAT IDEAS from 2012

OAKLAND EFFECTThe Oakland (Calif.) Tribune

This is an 18-month fellowship funded by the California Endowment to examine the impacts of violence, trauma, health, wealth and geographic inequities in Oakland and Alameda County. The $348,000 grant covers the cost of a full-time reporter, includes funding for Oakland Voices, the creation of a website dedicated to this area of coverage and an aggressive community engagement campaign that includes public forums and other outreach to provide those most impacted by these issues with the opportunity to have their issues heard before the leaders and major stakeholders charged with addressing these disparities.

The fellowship is also run in partnership with the Maynard Institute, which is serving as fiscal sponsor and co-authored the grant with the Tribune. The goal is to raise awareness of the impacts of violence, trauma, mental health, wealth and geographic inequities on Oakland in the hopes the stories produced will help push leaders to come up with solutions to these challenges. Oakland Effect stories are published first in The Oakland Tribune and other Bay Area News Group papers and websites, including the San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times, as well as housed on oaklandeffect.com.

BEAT OF THE WEEK: Sue Ogrocki

As soon as she saw the first tornado warnings on television, Oklahoma City staff photographer Sue Ogrocki rushed out of the office. Oklahoma is in the heart of Tornado Alley, and Ogrocki knew from covering a dozen twisters over the past decade that there was no time to waste.

"If I didn’t get in my car before the first funnel cloud hit, it would be too late,” she said.

BEST OF THE STATES: Mike Baker, Joan Lowy

The collapse of a portion of the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River north of Seattle seemed spontaneous. When a truck driver said he’d nipped part of the structure moments before the collapse, it begged the question: How could damage to one area bring down an entire bridge?

Quick investigative work by Olympia, Wash., newsman Mike Baker and Washington, D.C., transportation reporter Joan Lowy provided the answer. Aided by Interactive Newsroom Technology Editor Troy Thibodeaux and West regional interactive editor Dan Kempton, Baker and Lowy discovered that the I-5 bridge was "fracture critical,” meaning it was built with no redundancies. So if one part failed, the whole thing could collapse – as it did last week, miraculously with no fatalities. Even more startling, their reporting revealed that the U.S. has 8,000 more such bridges.

EDITORS IN THE NEWS

The Washington Post has named a digital strategy editor as the newspaper's managing editor in charge of digital initiatives and multimedia operations. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz was named managing editor on Friday, May 24. He will work with Kevin Merida, the managing editor in charge of news and features coverage. Post Executive Editor Martin Baron says Garcia-Ruiz has been instrumental in helping the Post to innovate, bringing a team of developers into the newsroom and releasing more than a dozen digital products in the past year. Garcia-Ruiz is a graduate of the University of Maryland. He began his career at the Washington Post before moving to the Orange County Register, Los Angeles Times and St. Paul Pioneer Press. He returned to the Post in 2001 and has served as sports editor and local editor.

IN MEMORIAM

Ex-AP foreign correspondent Hal McClure dies

Hal McClure, who covered two Arab-Israeli wars after turning a passion for travel and the written word into a career as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press, has died in California. He was 92.

McClure died Sunday, May 26, at a Laguna Hills hospital following surgery to relieve a blood clot on his brain from a recent fall, according to his sister, Virginia McClure.

McClure spent 21 years overseas for the AP beginning in the mid-1950s.

Haynes Johnson, a pioneering Washington journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the civil rights movement and migrated from newspapers to television, books and teaching, died Friday. He was 81.

Johnson, who helped redefine political reporting in addition to appearing on the Public Broadcasting Service and teaching journalism at the University of Maryland, died at a Washington-area hospital after suffering a heart attack. He had just attended the journalism school's graduation days earlier.

John Richard "Dick" Irwin, a retired newspaper reporter who chronicled crime in Baltimore for more than 40 years, has died. He was 76.

The Baltimore Sun reports (http://bsun.md/Z1oedM ) that Irwin died Wednesday, May 22, at Greater Baltimore Medical Center of complications from diabetes. Irwin worked at the News-American, The Evening Sun and most recently The Baltimore Sun. The no-nonsense but charming Irwin compiled a widely read police blotter, working into his early 70s.

ABOUT US: APME Update is published regularly by the Associated Press Media Editors Association. APME Update is edited by Sally Jacobsen. Send submissions by e-mail or call Sally at (212) 621-7007.

To receive APME Update by e-mail notify apme@ap.org. APME is an AP-member group of newspaper, broadcast and college education leaders founded in 1933 to provide input on the services of The Associated Press and to help newsroom managers become better leaders. A business league under section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code, APME is funded through registrations and sponsorships at the annual conference, APME Supporting Memberships and in-kind support. The Associated Press Media Editors Association Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, supports educational programming. Membership in APME is open to senior print and online editors at AP-member newspapers and news directors, news managers or other senior positions at AP broadcast outlets in the United States and Canadian Press publications in Canada. It is also open to administrators, professors, instructors, leaders or advisers of journalism studies programs at recognized colleges and universities and to editors or leaders at newspapers, radio stations, websites or other news outlets at recognized universities and colleges.